


Strangers

by Rhadamantelope



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Angst, Belated Grief, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Lots of Angst, Mental Anguish, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, to be exact
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-04-30 14:39:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5167586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhadamantelope/pseuds/Rhadamantelope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Sheriff of Lynchwood didn't expect to be dragged to Sanctuary by a pair of vault hunters for interrogation about the Elpis mission; she most certainly didn't plan on a reunion with Athena and Jack's doppelganger because of that.<br/>When the interference of an Eridian gives Nisha and Timothy the chance to escape, the two find themselves relying on reluctant survival instincts following their departure from Sanctuary. Namely the decision to travel together.<br/>After all, the notorious ex-Sheriff of Lynchwood and the man with Handsome Jack's face might not last as long alone.<br/>(AU in which Nisha was not killed during the storyline of Borderlands 2; set a few years after the end of bl2 and presumably during the third episode and on of Tales)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Inquisition

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, look at me actually writing a multi-chapter fic for once. I'm not sure where this idea came from but it just sort of sprang into my head a few nights ago and I decided to run with it. /fingerguns  
> So this chapter is essentially a rewrite of the beginning cutscene of the Pre-Sequel (which I still need to play for myself sssh) if only to set up the plot.

Everything’s bleary in her last few moments of consciousness; Winger is nowhere to be seen, the bodies of her henchmen lay bloody and mangled all over the town. She feels herself being dragged across the dry earth by her upper arms. The enormous psycho has her left in a death grip, threatening to break it with the slightest shift of his hand. She faintly recalls him knocking her off balance with a spray of bullets, and can feel the searing pain on the back of her neck where the blunt end of his buzzsaw met the base of her skull.

“We’ll have to get her back to Sanctuary and heal her quickly,” says a faint female voice on her right. Nisha wants to snap at her, tell her they aren’t taking her anywhere, but between the massive psycho’s hold on her left arm and the pressure behind her eyes, she can barely form a coherent thought. “And we’ll have to do it without Brick knowing; he’ll try to break her spine before we can get a decent answer out of her.”

The psycho exhales heavily, seeming slightly enthused at the mention of spines breaking. The sheriff can’t even bring herself to fully process the situation as her vision grows hazier by the second. She shuts her eyes with a soft groan, letting her head roll forward, chin pressing to her chest as everything goes dark.

 

She wakes up in bonds, overlooking Three Horns Divide as the sun begins to rise. Immediately, she catches sight of the gladiator beside her, making a pointed effort to avoid meeting Nisha’s eyes. Even so, Nisha leans forward a bit to get a better look at her.

“Long time, no see, Athena.” Athena closes her eyes in exasperation.

“Good to see everyone up and awake.” The sound of rough boots on cement interrupts the one-sided conversation. Nisha narrows her eyes at the red-haired siren, who raises her eyebrows in return. “I hope the two of you are feeling talkative today. Seems you are, lawbringer.”

Nisha sneers at her.

“Yeah,” she says. “Just raring to go.”

“Good,” says the siren. “Now I’ve only got a few questions for the two of you, and if I don’t like your answers--”

“I’ll take care a’ the sheriff, Lilith!” bellows the hulking man to her left. Nisha raises an eyebrow.

“Do we know each other?” she scoffs. He flares his nostrils and cracks his knuckles, only to be held back by a spindly man in goggles.

“Easy, amigo,” his companion mutters.

“You can deal with her if she doesn’t cooperate, Brick,” Lilith sighs.

It’s then that Nisha sees him, hands clasped behind his back, led up to the pole beside her by a soldier and an assassin. His hands aren’t tied, and he allows them to tug his arms around the pole behind him and tether his wrists together.

Nisha doesn’t bother to turn to get a better look at him; there’s no need with a profile like that. Even with the ragged hood over his head, his visible features are unmistakable. She opts to glance at him from the corner of her eye as Lilith continues.

“Aim at the prisoners!” she calls to the armed guards behind here.

“H-hold on!” the third prisoner shouts, raising his head quickly. “I thought we were here to be questioned, not shot to death!”

“Looks like someone missed the introduction,” Nisha quips. He turns to her, mismatched eyes frantic. “Answer correctly and you live, kid. ‘S like a game show.”

“You’re a surprisingly good listener,” Lilith remarks. “Nisha is right, Mister Lawrence. Choose your words wisely. More wisely than you did your friends, anyway.”

“Friends…” he repeats incredulously, turning to stare back at the ground.

“Five years ago,” Lilith states. “The three of you...helped Handsome Jack in his rise to power. All I have to ask at this point is...why?”

Nisha shrugged as best she could.

“I got an invitation,” she says simply.

“We _all_ did, technically,” Athena sighs. “It was a job from a low-level Hyperion programmer to hunt a vault of Elpis; I was in desperate need of money, so I went along with it.”

“Aren’t we all,” Nisha remarks. Athena glares at her, shifting her eyes emphatically towards the guards’ pistols raised in their direction.

Lilith, while no less sullen, seemed relatively satisfied with their answers for the moment. She turned to the doppelganger, who still stared at the concrete beneath his feet.

“What about you?” she asked sternly. “You were pretty hard to track down for someone with Jack’s face plastered onto his own, scar and all. How did you factor into all this?”

Tim looks back up, biting his lip. His eyes dart from Lilith’s face to the ground, and over to the other two prisoners. He utters something incomprehensible under his breath.

“Speak up,” Lilith says. He looks up at her woefully and licks his chapped lips.

“Student loans,” he groans. Nisha can’t help but let out a short, dry bark of laughter at that. “I had no...no other way to pay them off.”

“So you got surgery to look like a complete madman and agreed to _search for a vault on Elpis_.”

Tim nods curtly and the edge of his hood falls further down his face. Nisha tilts her head at his relatively brief responses. It seems uncharacteristically stoic of him, and quite frankly she’s surprised he’s not in a frenzy over having guns pointed at his head.

Lilith stares at him for a minute or so, seemingly prompting him to elaborate. When he averts his eyes once again, she gestures to the nearest soldier, who shuffles forward and angles her gun towards Tim’s leg. Her finger tenses on the trigger, firing a single bullet into the doppelganger’s thigh. He shrieks in pain as the searing metal pierces his skin and lodges itself in his leg, leaving blood seeping from the wound and soaking through the leg of his trousers.

“I’m a little disappointed,” Nisha murmurs to Athena. “I kind of expected it to go right through the back of his leg, at that kind of distance.”

“I would shut up if I were you, unless you want that to happen to you.”

Tim whimpers, teeth digging into his bottom lip, likely hard enough to draw more blood. Lilith clenches her fists and moves back towards Athena.

“I want the full story,” she says. “Since these two don’t seem to want to talk.”

Nisha ventures another glance back at Tim, who catches her eye briefly, his right eye filled with tears. His left is red-rimmed and clouded, covered by the scar made to mimic that of Handsome Jack himself. Its resemblance to Jack’s scar lies in shape alone; Tim’s is deeper and thinner and seems to have been cut into him hastily, then burned to cauterize the wound before a drop of blood could be shed. He blinks slowly, shuddering as Athena begins to describe her recruitment to the mission to Elpis.


	2. Jailbreak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim and Nisha form a plan to escape. And by that I mean they have no plan whatsoever, but they take what they can get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sort of another part of the rewrite of the pre sequel ending; I'm sorry, I just kind of needed to in order to get this story on the road. Next chapter, all new shit. I promise.

It’s been two and a half hours since Tim got ahold of the medical pliers, and consequently, two and a half hours of Nisha being forced to listen to him yelp as he digs them into his thigh in a merciless search for the guard’s offending bullet.

“FUCK!” he yells, tugging them out with a slimy click. He pants triumphantly, depositing the bullet in his palm and examining it before tossing it to the ground. It rolls dangerously close to Nisha’s cell, and she growls at him, rubbing her sore eyes.

“How did they get you here?” he asks with quiet near-admiration, pulling a roll of bandages from his jacket and beginning to wrap his leg. Nisha cracks one eye open, and swears for a moment that it’s Jack sitting in the cell beside hers, not some cheap copy. She shakes her head and leans back.

“That big fucking psycho got me in the back of the head with his buzzsaw,” she mutters, her face hot with shame. “That’s _how_. Not like they got much out of it.”

“They’re not too happy about that,” Tim replies. He winces as he pulls the bandage tighter. “And you saw what they did to me.”

“Yeah, that looks like a real bitch,” she scoffs. Tim frowns and pauses for a minute.

“Where were the others? Wouldn’t they want input from other sources--Aurelia Hammerlock, maybe?”

Nisha quirks an eyebrow at him.

“You _really_ think they could have convinced _Aurelia_ to come to Sanctuary for questioning? The woman’s probably fifty times richer than a goddamn traveling gun salesman in bandit country. There’s not a thing these _vault hunters_ could offer her that she doesn’t already have. And let’s be real,” Nisha added. “Wilhelm wouldn’t be of any use to them. The guy hasn’t got any more than three fucking brain cells. Or he didn’t have, technically.”

“What?”

“Poor bastard got shot dead in Three Horns two years ago. You didn’t hear?”

Tim tenses, tying off the bandage roughly. He props his better leg up and leans his chin on the knee, eyes dark.

“I don’t really keep up with what happens to Jack and his...people, I guess.”

“Bet you weren’t too broken up over hearing he was killed, though.”

Tim looks over to meet Nisha’s denunciatory gaze.

“I...I can’t say I was,” he admits, earning a cynical huff from the former sheriff. “I might even say he deserved it.”

“Maybe he did. Maybe he had it coming to him,” Nisha says. Tim cocks his head and she lets out the same dry laugh from before. “But _damn_ , that man had a good run.”

She laughs again, tired.

“If you consider a ‘good run’ killing millions of people, then alright. Sure.” Tim fiddles with his hood, which is down now, loose around his neck. “An answer like that’s probably gonna guarantee you won’t get out of here alive.”

Nisha exhales and puts an arm up on the bench beside where she sits. The pain in her head is beginning to subside, but lingers still near the point where the saw hit her neck.

“I’m getting out of here alive,” she mutters. “They’re not done with Athena out there just yet. I’ll figure something out.”

Tim is already up, one arm out of his cell, feeling along the stone wall.

“Here we are.”

“What the _hell_ are you doing?”

“The wall might be hollow,” he explains, twisting around partially to face her. His arm is still reaching around the sharp corner of the wall, and Nisha suspects he might break something if he doesn’t turn back around. Shakily, she stands and watches him fumble with the hatch on the wall. “Ugh, nothing.”

He pulls his hand back, shaking his arm.

“What were you _expecting_ , Jack?” It takes her a moment to realize what she just said, and she bites her tongue. “The Crimson Raiders aren’t stupid.”

“I don’t know,” Tim sighs, ignoring Nisha’s mistake; he’s used to being called by his former employer’s name anyway.

“Whatever. I’ll figure something out myself, since you’re clearly incapable. I’m _not_ gonna be stuck on fucking _Sanctuary_ for the rest of my life.”

“Oh yeah?”

Brick stands to their right, flanked by two armed guards. He cracks his massive knuckles.

“I wouldn’t be too sure. Lilith wants the two a’ you outside wit’ Athena. I ain’t sure, but she don’t seem too pleased.”

The guards unlock their cells and roughly lead Tim and Nisha out of the building with Brick in front of them.

“You know, Brick,” Nisha says with a smirk. “If I don’t make it out of this, I just want to say...sorry about that dog of yours.”

Brick snarls at her over his shoulder, clenching his fists.

“Really, I am. Always hated dogs, though. And yours wasn’t any exception, poor thing.”

“Nisha,” Tim hisses. “Don’t test him.”

Nisha rolls her eyes and tilts her head down so the brim of her hat obscures her face. The guards shove them against the posts beside Athena once again, tying their hands behind their backs.

“Good to see you again,” Nisha says.

“Hasn’t been long enough.”

“Heh.”

“So you, Athena,” Lilith states. “You...regret teaming up with Jack?”

“Yes,” Athena replies. “Now do what you will.”

Lilith folds her arms and turns to the guards.

“Kill them,” she demands. A series of protests rings out from the vault hunters behind her.

“All of them?” asks the soldier who captured Tim. He runs a hand through his sandy brown hair, brow knitting in concern.

“ _She_ don’t deserve it, Lil,” Brick says, gesturing towards Athena.

“Y-you never gave _us_ the chance to explain--” Tim stutters.

“I don’t need to!” Lilith snaps. “If not for people like you, our friends might still be alive! Now, FIRE!”

Nisha glances at Tim.

“It’s been a good run.”

He whimpers, but seems distracted by something in his hand behind him. The guards heft their guns and the prisoners brace themselves for the impact of the bullets.

But it never comes.

The sound of gunshots rings out, the barrels of the guards’ weapons spark, but no bullets hit, instead dropping to the ground several feet in front of them. The guards lower their guns.

“What the hell?” Lilith hisses as the lead bullets clatter on the concrete. A shadow falls over the vault hunters and their prisoners, humanoid, with a pair of wings stretching across nearly the the entirety of the outcropping. Its owner lands soundlessly, and strides through the crowd to face Lilith and Athena.

It is clearly Eridian, and is far taller than any human, standing at least three feet taller than Brick. Its long neck slopes downwards, ending in a helmeted face crowned with feathery appendages.

“Now is not the time for bickering, vault hunters,” it says in a smooth, nearly feminine voice. Nisha recognizes it, and she knows Athena and Tim do as well; of all things she has never wanted to see again, the Watcher is most definitely one.

She feels a pair of hands at her wrists, tugging at the knots holding them together.

“I don’t know why that thing is here,” she hears Tim whisper behind her. “And I...I _really_ don’t wanna find out. I’m gonna make a break for it, there’s gotta be a fast travel station somewhere in Sanctuary.”

Nisha nods. Tim finishes untying the last knot, and licks his lips.

“I’d get Athena too, but there’s just not enough--”

“Time.” Nisha finishes for him, and she bolts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goodbye Sanctuary, hello...well, I guess we'll have to see.


	3. Stone Walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's some killing of bandits, walking, headaches, getting yelled at by a garage owner, and more walking. Not necessarily in that order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took this down for quite a while to edit it for description and figure out pacing and stuff. But here it is! SLightly better than before, whoo!

There’s sand in Tim’s mouth as soon as they reach the fast-travel station in the Dust. He coughs, spitting on the ground and wiping the grains out of his eyes. Nisha grunts, displeased.

“I told you to take us to Lynchwood,” she mutters.

“I’m sorry, I _thought_ I hit that option.”

“You’re an idiot.”

He shrugs off her comment, but still looks a little hurt. She taps her foot, kicking up dust as she glances to the darkening sky. Several buzzards hover in the distance, the whirr of their blades hissing faintly.

“What are we gonna do now?” he asks.

“Well, _I’m_ gonna use _that_ \--” she indicates towards the fast-travel station. “To get back to Lynchwood. I don’t know about you.”

Nisha tilts her head for a moment, looking from Tim’s ragged leather belt to the exposed parts of his weather-beaten jacket. There’s a shield on the clasp of his cloak, holding it closed over his broad chest, but not a weapon in sight.

“D’you even have a gun, kid?”

Tim casts his eyes to the ground.

“Not _on_ me.”

“The hell do you mean, _not on you_? You travel around Pandora _without_ a gun?”

Tim shakes his head frantically.

“No, of course I don’t, but they, ah…they confiscated the one I had with me when they brought me to Sanctuary,” he explained. “It was a pretty nice Jakobs pistol too…”

Nisha sighs deeply, rubbing her temple.

“That...sucks.” She folds her arms and looks around, grimacing at the biting scent of gasoline that fills her mouth and nose; they’re outside a garage, and where there’s a garage she knows there is bound to be an owner. She’s not really in the mood to become acquainted with them. “Look, just buy a cheap one somewhere, then. I’m going--”

“Ohhh, no you ain’t!”

Nisha swears under her breath and turns. The pain in her head is returning, pounding in time with her pulse and making her stress all the more apparent.

The woman sauntering towards them brandishes a wrench in her pudgy hand, holding it out threateningly in front of her.

“You,” she says. “Why I know ‘bout you, Moxxi tol’ me they brought the two a’ you into Sanctuary this mornin’! The Sheriff a’ Lynchwood an’ Handsome Jack’s doppelganger...two faces I never thought I’d see ‘round my garage. Never wanted to see ya ‘round my garage for that matter.”

Tim raises his hands.

“W-we don’t want any trouble, Miss, um--”

“Ellie, ya dumbass. An’ I don’t want no trouble either. ‘S why you’re gonna hightail it outta here before I beat y’all and put you in the crusher!”

“Oh.”

“Or you could sit on us,” Nisha remarks flatly, turning to input coordinates into the fast-travel station. Tim gapes at her.

“Naw, that’s off limits for you folks, y’all are walkin’ across the desert if ya wanna leave. Go on now!”

Nisha narrows her eyes at Ellie, who raises her eyebrows and holds the wrench out.

“Come on,” she says, tugging roughly at Tim’s cloak and leading him past the gate of the garage; the gate itself towers several feet above her head, and makes her feel oddly small. She hates it. Ellie places her hands on her wide hips and purses her lips as she watches them leave.

“There’s a train to Lynchwood across the Dust,” Nisha says, more to herself than Tim or anyone else.

“So you’re going to cross the Dust without a gun?”

Nisha reaches into her coat and pulls out a small pistol, several inches shorter than her own forearm. It’s a Hyperion model, one she rarely uses, but she’s had it with her for years. Its yellow paint is still pristine, like an image straight out of a Hyperion catalog.

“I don’t just carry a single gun on me,” she says. “Unlike some people. Kept this one where they couldn’t actually take it.”

She tucks it back into the inside pocket and adjusts the coat around her chest. Tim toes a piece of metal at the edge of a nearby scrap heap.

“I guess...I guess that’s probably a good idea,” he says. Overhead, a buzzard flies past noisily, one of its passengers firing a few shots from a machine gun. Tim jumps as the spray of bullets hit the sand around his feet. The bandits cackle, their laughter fading into the distance as the helicopter sails off.

“We’re gonna have to travel by the cliffs,” Nisha growls. “I can’t shoot down a buzzard with a pistol half the size of my arm and I’m not a big fan of getting a bullet to the back of the head from some bandit scum in the air.”

“A little harsh there,” Tim says as the make their way to the rocky overhang. “The whole ‘bandit scum’ thing.”

“It’s not like it’s untrue.”

“You sound like Jack.”

“That’s real funny, coming from you,” Nisha snorts, turning to look at him. He glowers at her, scar twisting with his frown. “Don’t think I got all that from him, though. I was killing bandits on Pandora before he even got the idea to send us to Elpis.”

“How sweet. It’s like you two were made for each other.”

She can’t help but laugh at that.

“Don’t press your luck,” she says, despite herself.

“I’ve gotta say, it’s cute how you kept his gift all this time.”

Nisha stops suddenly in her tracks, boots scraping on the dry patch of earth beside the cliff. She turns around again with her arms crossed. Tim offers her a small, almost sympathetic smile.

“Come on. It’s pretty obvious, that’s a Hyperion model anyway and it’s ugly as hell.”

“Doesn’t matter what it _looks_ like as long as it shoots well.”

“And how often have you used it?”

Nisha stares daggers through him, her gloved hands clenching on her upper arms, crimping the fabric and drawing streaks in the dust caked on her sleeves. He licks his lips and looks to the sky, now fading from red to violet as the sun sinks lower and lower behind the mountains.

“We should probably keep moving. It’s getting pretty dark,” he remarks, continuing to walk along the jagged wall of stone.

“Good call,” Nisha says irritably, walking quickly to move ahead of him.

 

She shoots the driver of a bandit technical a few hours later; Tim can’t fathom how she managed to make the shot with that tiny pistol, but doesn’t have time to dwell on it when the marauder in the passenger seat shoves his slaughtered companion into the back of the car and takes the wheel.

Nisha raises her arm as the car thunders toward her, a dangerous grin on her lips. Tim yells out, telling her to _get out of the way for the love of god_ , but she ignores him, pulling the trigger when the bandit technical is about twenty feet from her. Her bullet strikes its new driver between the eyes, a stream of blood making an arc in the air as he falls back against the seat. Nisha steps to the side as the vehicle veers past her before it slams into the cliff face, mangling itself violently in the collision. Black smog billows from its fractured hood, trickling from gaps in the metal as slowly and surely as blood streams from the bullet wounds of its drivers.

Depositing the pistol back into her coat pocket, Nisha jerks her head in the direction of the smoking vehicle.

“C’mon. We’re gonna find you a gun.”

“In a car full of dead bandits?”

“You say that like you didn’t take guns of dead Lost Legion soldiers on Elpis.”

Tim makes a small disgruntled noise, but follows her regardless. The smell from the car is almost unbearable, like seared rubber and burnt leather.

She jumps, catlike, into the car, and turns over the bandit in the passenger seat, smearing blood across the already-filthy olive fabric. She unzips his jacket with unnerving efficiency and plucks the few dollars he has from his pockets.

“Get the other one,” she says to Tim, taking the Jakobs pistol off her marauder’s belt. Gagging at the stench, Tim pulls himself into the burning car as well and unbuckles the holster on the driver’s leg. There’s a Dahl pistol in it, and a Bandit SMG slung across the marauder’s back. He pulls at the arm of the marauder’s jacket in an attempt to turn him over. Nisha watches him, unimpressed, before grabbing the marauder’s other arm and giving the body a shove. It hits Tim’s chest with a heavy, slightly damp thud, and the doppelganger cringes. He pulls the SMG off the bandit’s back and scowls at Nisha, setting the corpse back down and dabbing at the blood on his own jacket with the tattered cloak around his shoulders. It only serves to stain both garments, and the tinny scent of blood begins to mingle with that of the car’s smoke and gasoline in Tim’s nostrils.

“That guy have a shield?” Nisha asks, pushing aside the marauder by her. Tim shakes his head.

“You don’t have a shield?”

“No, that psycho must have knocked it offa me when he and the other brought me in.” She shrugged, clipping the pistol into her own holster and grabbing a rifle out of the back of the car. “I’ll just have to avoid getting shot, I guess.”

She leaps down from the vehicle and adjusts her hat.

“Well, that’s, um...that’s certainly a plan,” Tim replies, attempting to step down carefully from the driver’s side only to wince as he bends his left leg, straining the lead-pierced muscle.

He follows her in silence for quite a while; they stay in the shadow of the cliffs in order to avoid the bandit camps and spiderants that crawl through the sands. He’s pleasantly surprised that he’s able to keep up with her despite his bad leg.

“How’s your head?” he asks suddenly.

“It’s...it’s fine. I s’pose,” she lies; there’s been a nagging pain in the back of her head that has been fading in and out for several hours now. At the moment, she feels as if shock damage would be less of a pain than her splitting migraine. “Your leg?”

“As good as it’ll be unless I can find a doctor,” he says. “Thanks for asking, considering you seemed a little let down the bullet didn’t go through my leg like some sort of...some sort of sandworm.”

“Calm down, would you?” Nisha laughs humorlessly. “It was a joke.”

She grimaces as the pounding in her head returns, beating behind her eyes more forcefully than before. They stop for a moment as she rubs her temples.

“So what are you going to do when you get to Lynchwood?” Tim inquires.

“I’m gonna take back control of my town,” she replies. “Obviously. And you can go...wherever you need to from there. Wherever the hell you’ve been hiding out in this wasteland since you got _that_.”

She gestures behind her vaguely, indicating the scar on Tim’s face. He touches the edge of it; it still stings a bit, after all this time.

“Well? Where _did_ you go after--”

“After Jack _fired_ me, you mean?”

Nisha grins. She doesn’t need to turn for Tim to know she’s grinning; she sets her shoulders a certain way when she finds something funny. She did it when they were on Elpis every time he screamed out of fear of heights, on Helios when Jack put a bullet through Claptrap’s mainframe.

“Tundra Express.”

“Yeah? Surprised you didn’t hear about Wilhelm, then.”

“A little relieved I didn’t, actually.”

“Why’s that?”

“Are you sure you’re doing okay? We can stop for a--”

“Don’t change the subject. We’ll keep walking. What’s your deal with Wilhelm?”

Tim gnaws at his lip and breathes out heavily.

“I’m not talking about this right now,” he says finally.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s NOT something I’d like to bring up, okay?”

Nisha huffs and looks out across the wide expanse of the Dust. She takes her hat off and runs her fingers through her dark hair.

“This isn’t going to work,” she mutters.

“What?”

“Walking along the cliffs. We’re gonna have to cut through if we want to reach the train station by tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow _night_?”

“ _Yes, Tim_ ,” she growls. “The Old Dahlwell Oasis is a big fucking place, and the station’s on the very edge of it.”

He opens his mouth to object, but Nisha is already stalking down into the sandy basin, pistol at the ready. He sighs and follows her down.

It’s still odd, though, hearing people call him by his real name.

 

Several yards away, a troupe of spiderants scuttles by, kicking up dust with their sharp feet. They hiss and spit faintly in the distance, and Tim watches them sullenly, hoping they will not turn and charge towards them. The sand that whips across his face makes his scar itch; he remembers now why he stayed in the tundra for so long.

Nisha stands on the rusted platform of the little train station. She rubs at her eyelids and shakes her head, as if trying to shake off the migraine.

“We could always--” he says.

“Shut up.”

“I just don’t think--”

“Shut. Up.”

He comes to stand beside her, attempting to get a better look at her face. She jerks her head away and refuses to meet his eye.

“I’m fucking fine,” she hisses, straightening up and turning her back to him.

“You could at least look at me when we’re talking, you know.”

“No.” Nisha cringes internally at how childish a response it is, but refuses to waver. His fingertips touch her shoulder lightly, and she slaps his hand away. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I...I don’t know.”

“Do you _ever_?” she asks. “God, I can’t _wait_ to be rid of you. You’re almost as bad as Claptrap, you know that?”

“So that’s my thanks for helping you out back there?” Tim grumbles. “Nice. Real nice.”

“I’m not here to be nice to you, fuckwit.”

Tim scowls at her back, and looks up at the mountains, where the sun is just beginning to set for the second time. The stone peaks are mere dark ridges against the red sky, like the rough spines of a kraggon’s back.Tim recalls being bitten on the arm by one on Elpis; he can still feel the prickling sensation from the scar under his sleeve, a faint mark that had faded several years ago to a crescent mark on his forearm, abnormally pale against his tanned skin. He rubs his arm to ward off the discomfort.

The train pulls into the station; it’s a sad little thing, with chipped yellow paint and boards over its few windows. Tim is no mechanic, but he’s fairly certain that the screech it emits upon stopping goes on for a little longer than normal.

The inside of the train is filled with tattered seats, bullet shells, and more dust than Tim would expect to find in a train car. He and Nisha opt to stand, holding onto the bars attached to the walls.

“Keep your gun out,” Nisha barks. “I don’t want any bandits messing with us just because one of us doesn’t look threatening.”

“I’ve literally got Handsome Jack’s face,” Tim reminds her. She blinks slowly, her face twitching in distaste.

“Yeah. I got that,” she says. Her body relaxes for a moment as she looks at him. “To tell you the truth, those doctors did too good a job on you.”

Tim cocks his head.

“I...what?”

Nisha shakes her head and looks out the sliver of window not covered with boards.

“Nevermind.”

They spend the train ride to Lynchwood in silence; if there are any bandits on the train, they avoid the sheriff and the doppelganger for the duration of the trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So hopefully that wasn't too boring. Either way, we're Lynchwood bound next chapter!  
> as always, feedback is greatly appreciated :>


	4. The Sheriff's Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nisha gets a not-so-happy welcome back to Lynchwood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who wrote most of this on the train ride back to school? meeeee. Gotta love shitty train wifi, but I shouldn't be complaining since it's wifi. On a train. So I could actually finish this chapter.

Lynchwood is quiet, almost peaceful in the pale light of dawn. Tim is tempted to breathe a sigh of relief as he surveys the dusty roads and cracked sign, still dark against the pink and gold of the morning sky, but feels Nisha bristle behind him. She exhales hard, and he can feel the forceful puff of her breath against his shoulder.

She comes to stand by him, and he notes how small she seems now that they’re in such close proximity; the top of her head might line up almost exactly with his nose should she be any closer. She puts the wide-brimmed hat back on her head and glares into the distance. There’s practically something sad about her resentful glare, as if she is angered by the tranquility of it all. Nisha steps forward, motioning with one gloved hand for him to follow. He does, albeit somewhat gingerly, instinctively pulling his hood back over his unkempt hair, now streaked through with red and gray.

“Good to be, er, home?” Tim ventures. Nisha doesn’t respond, only surveying the seemingly-barren town in tense silence.

“I guess we should find Winger,” she says.

“Winger?”

“My deputy.”

“Ah.” Tim follows her as she strides through the town, her boots crushing dried roots scattered along the crudely defined road with a soft crack. “You don’t...seem like the type to work with a deputy, to tell you the truth.”

“Did I ask for a heart-to-heart?” she asks. “Besides, it’s not as if all those bandits would string themselves up.”

“Oh, lovely.” He glances at the dilapidated houses on either side of them, his eyes catching on a rat peering out from an alleyway. The rat tilts his head, masked gaze trained on Tim’s belt. It looks almost unnatural how his neck bends with the movement, and Tim tugs his cloak tighter around himself, watching the rat retreat into the shadows of the alley. He shudders; of all the deranged individuals he’s seen on Pandora, rats somehow always manage to make him most uncomfortable. He hears Nisha laugh, and sees she’s now walking backwards facing him.

“Ignore ‘em,” she sighs. “They’re not gonna steal your shit unless you’re alone. I once saw about six swarm this one asshole who marched in here trying to find a vault. Obviously not Pandoran, had these brand new clothes on, nice shiny Maliwan gun too...either way, it was a fun thing to watch.”

“You just...watched?”

Nisha raises a dark, well-preened eyebrow and smirks at Tim’s horrified expression. She prided herself on being able to make people cringe, to make men a head taller than her draw back in fear; perhaps it was a bit of a power trip on her part, but it was a disposition she thoroughly enjoyed enforcing.

“You sound surprised,” she replies, tilting her head up and letting her sleek raven bangs fall away from her face, an air of triumph in her tired yellow eyes. Something about her own response feels disappointing in her mouth, however. Tim casts his eyes to the side with a heavy, exasperated breath as the red of the rising sun washes over his angular features and he shields his eyes from the light.

Nisha gives him one last glance that lasts a bit too long for her own comfort before turning around in time to maneuver around a wooden post. The light of the sun peeking out from over the mountaintops makes her eyes sting in a manner that reminds her, strangely enough, of a hot iron pressed against her eyelids.

The town hall--if it can be called such--is only a few feet taller than the buildings around it, with a dilapidated, empty porch out front. There may have been paint on its exterior at some point; if so, it has faded to the same graying brown of the wood the hall is made of, with thin slivers curling off its surface as though trying to contort their way out of the planks.

“A little...shoddier than what I’d think the Sheriff of Lynchwood might like,” Tim remarks.

“You seem to forget that I’m not actually the same person as Jack,” Nisha says, bearing her teeth in a grimace that begins to border on a snarl. “He’s the one into the ivory pillars and gold statues; like I said before, doesn’t matter what it looks like to me so long as it _works_.”

“He was,” Tim murmurs under his breath. Nisha tenses, her teeth grinding hard enough for the pain in her head to drip into her jaw. Her hand drops instinctively to her holster before she briskly strides up the steps of the town hall, listening intently to the boards creaking and popping under her heels.

She shoves the door open, pushing it with her shoulder in a way so fluid she thinks it must be muscle memory at this point. It unsticks and swings open, screeching as it rubs against the floorboards.

The large man sitting at the desk-- _her_ old desk--looks up, startled. His eyes widen upon meeting Nisha’s, and she grins as she watches him rise to his feet slowly, carefully.

“Morning, Winger,” she practically sings. He draws himself up to his full height--just a few inches shorter than Tim--and holds his arms rigid against his sides, scrutinizing both the sheriff and her hooded companion.

“What...what are you doing here?” he asks, voice low and cautious. Nisha opens her arms, nearly clipping Tim in the nose.

“Not happy to see me?”

Winger leans down, extending an arm to reach beneath the desk, and straightens back up with a shotgun in his hands. Tim draws back and raises his hands as Winger aims the shotgun in their direction, holding it up easily with a single large hand.

“Not in the slightest.” Winger has a pleasant voice, with a soft southern accent that would sound kind, perhaps even welcoming if not for its imposing owner and the cocked gun in his hand. Tim opens his mouth in an attempt to negotiate, only to feel the back of Nisha’s glove cover his lips; he closes his mouth, the faint bitter taste of leather on his tongue.

“I’m gone two days,” she says, the amused smile on her face rapidly fading to a scowl. “And you…”

“Take control of the town? _Your_ town, Sheriff Kadam?” Winger lets out a scoff, tossing his head back slightly.

The smile returns briefly to Nisha’s face, and she snorts.

“Ooh, still _Sheriff Kadam_ , eh Winger? I like that.”

“I sure as hell ain’t on any first-name basis with you.” Winger steps around the desk to stand in front of it, both hands now gripping the shotgun and ready to fire. Nisha notes how much steadier his grasp on the gun seems to be; two days without her may have done him well, but from the receiving end of the barrel, Nisha curses herself for being careless enough to get dragged off to Sanctuary. “And I suppose ‘sheriff’’s not what I should be callin’ you at this point; you ain’t the Sheriff of Lynchwood anymore.”

“Two days,” Nisha repeats. “Two days was all it took to turn you into some kinda revolutionary, huh? And for what, Winger? Not like it’s gonna do you any good in the near future.”

“I didn’t do it for me.”

“Oh, how _noble_ ,” Nisha croons, placing her hands over her heart in mock admiration. “You did it _for the people of Lynchwood_ , hm? Put yourself in power to give them a better life...god, that’s so _valiant_ it makes my head hurt.”

And her head _does_ hurt; it’s pounding, in fact, and the musty scent of the old building punctuated by some foreign burning smell (incense or candles, she can only assume) isn’t helping any. Winger visibly bristles at her words, and she smirks, letting her arms fall to her sides. Her right hand brushes the handle of the pistol at her hip and she slides her thumb across it; she can feel Tim’s eyes follow the movement as he shifts in discomfort but doesn’t dare open his mouth.

“Now, this doesn’t have to end in a mess,” Winger continues, inching forward in an attempt to force them out the door. Tim backs up, ducking his head to further conceal his face, but Nisha stands her ground, simply raising her brow again as the barrel of Winger’s shotgun comes within a mere two feet of her face. “Y’all can just leave, let us be. You and your...friend ain’t welcome here but--”

“Winger, Winger, Winger…” Nisha’s fingers close around the pistol and she tugs it out of her holster, twirling it with ironic grace before pointing it at Winger’s forehead. “Oh, wait. This seems familiar, now doesn’t it? Hah! But this should go without saying, Winger: you know me. And you know I wouldn’t just lie down and pass through. I don’t give a DAMN if I’m wanted or unwanted, this is my town and you know it. So let’s be real with each other right now; I’m not going anywhere.”

Winger doesn’t flinch at that, and it worries her. Ever so slowly, he lowers one hand and brings it to his mouth, letting out a piercing whistle. The door screeches behind her, and the sudden influx of men pushes Tim up against her. They watch anxiously as Nisha’s underlings, now Winger’s, rush in, their rifles pointed directly at them. Nisha tries to ignore them, her aim trained on Winger as she straightens out her arm only to watch her hand waver before her. She curses under her breath and rubs her temple with her free hand; she’s never cracked under pressure like this before.

“You know what? I’ll make you an offer, this’ll be the first and last time,” Winger explains. “You’ve got a choice: you can stay here on the one condition that you remain on the edge of town and keep your bullets to yourself--” That gets a quiet laugh out of Nisha. “--or you can go. If you go, you’re never comin’ back.”

Tim steps closer so his back presses to her own.

“Is this really worth it?” he asks. “We could just leave right now, no gunfire needed, no _house arrest_ if I’m understanding him correctly…”

Nisha ignores him, only elbowing him in the ribs to urge him to move away from her. With a deep, somewhat regretful breath, she lowers her unstable arm and places the pistol back in its holster.

“We’ll stay in Lynchwood, if you’re willing to extend your _hospitality_ , _Sheriff_ Winger.” She spits the word “hospitality” out like a swear.

“What?” Tim hisses. One of the broad marshalls grabs him by the back of the cloak, pulling off his hood. It musses up the wavy bangs so definitive of Handsome Jack, but the marshall still takes a step back at the sight of the doppelganger. Tim simply glances at him in exhaustion, strands of hair falling over the angry red scar. The marshall looks him over once again, eyes running over the bedraggled imitation of the Hyperion CEO’s own hairstyle, the sharp (but not quite sharp _enough_ ) facial features, the scruff covering the lower half of his face; he then narrows his eyes and ushers Tim out the door, tapping his back with the rifle.

Nisha walks beside him, flanked by three or so marshalls to his one. She smiles far too pleasantly for Tim’s comfort.

“Why would you stay?” he asks. “There’s nothing for you here. It doesn’t...it just doesn’t make sense.”

Nisha flicks her bangs out of her face; her head still hurts, but after a while it has become almost bearable. She glances over at Tim.

“Oh,” she says, voice low enough for only him to hear. “Oh, there’s something for me here alright. There’ll always be something for me here, so long as this town is still standing. It’s my town, after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get hype for some angst (or at least physical pain) next chapter~  
> got something to tell me about the story? about my weird characterization? about the new hit Netflix series Jessica Jones? (actually talk to me on tumblr about that one) Leave a comment eyyy!

**Author's Note:**

> Just bear with me for now, things will get more interesting next chapter. Sorry about your leg, Timmy.  
> As always, comments and pointers are always appreciated!


End file.
